In our 181st episode, we got to chat with Ansley about her great dinosaur sculptures. You can see her work on her Instagram accounts ArtbyAnz and mcdansley or on Facebook at ArtbyAnz

Episode 181 is also about Archaeornithomimus an ornithomimosaur from Inner Mongolia that was mentioned in Jurassic World

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Colin Trevorrow says there won’t be any hybrid dinosaurs in Jurassic World 3 and that it will be a “science thriller in the same way that Jurassic Park was.”

The dinosaur of the day: Archaeornithomimus

Archaeornithomimus

Claire mentions Archaeornithomimus to Owen in Jurassic World

Ornithomimosaur that lived in the Cretaceous in what is now Inner Mongolia (Iren Dabasu Formation)

Found in 1923 during an American Museum of Natural History expedition, led by Roy Chapman Andrews (found theropod remains in three quarries)

Found several individuals, though not much of the skull

Described in 1933 by Charles Whitney Gilmore, as a new Ornithomimus species, Ornithomimus asiaticus

In 1972, Dale Russell renamed it Archaeornithomimus

Name means “ancient bird mimic”

Named ancient because Dale Russell thought it was 95 million years old (only about 70 million years old), which made it one of the oldest ornithomimids known at the time

Type species is Archaeornithomimus asiaticus (and only valid species)

Othniel Charles Marsh found foot bones in Maryland that he referred to Allosaurus medius. In 1911 those bones were named a new species of Dryptosaurus, Dryptosaurus grandis, and in 1920 Gilmore renamed them as a new species of Ornithomimus. Since Ornithomimus grandis was already named, he named it Ornithomimus affinis. Then in 1972 Russell renamed those bones as Archaeornithomimus affinis. However, in 1990 Smith and Galton found that those bones were not an ornithomimosaur, and were some other type of theropod

Lev Nesov named a third species of Archaeornithomimus in 1995, Archaeornithomimus bissektensis, based on a juvenile’s thighbone found in the Bissekty Formation in Uzbekistan. Though now, not everyone thinks this is actually a species of Archaeornithomimus

Gilmore did not assign a holotype specimen, so in 1990 David Smith and Peter Galton published a complete description of the fossils and named a lectotype

Skull not known, but probably was toothless and had a beak

May have been an omnivore (unclear because not enough known about the skull), which means it could have eaten small mammals, plants, fruit, eggs, and maybe hatchlings

About 11 ft (3.3 m) long and weighed up to 110 lb (50 kg)

Had long legs, and was fast, and had a long tail to help with balance

Other dinosaurs that lived at the same time and place include the tyrannosaur Alectrosaurus, maniraptorian Avimimus, oviraptorid Gigantoraptor, and dromaeosaurid Velociraptor

Fun Fact:

Despite the wide variety of ceratopsian ornamentation, “at no point were horns or frills completely lost in any ceratopsian lineage once established.”

Ankylosaur that lived in the Cretaceous in what is now Queensland, Australia

Described in 1980 by Ralph Molnar

Dr. Alan Barholomai found the skeleton in 1964, near Minmi Crossing, in Queensland

Only one species: Minmi paravertebra

Genus name refers to Minmi Crossing, and may mean a large lily in the local Aboriginal language, but may also come from min min, a will-o-the-wisp

Species name refers to the bone elements found along the vertebrae

For 24 years, Minmi had the shortest dinosaur name (until Mei was named in 2004)

Holotype consists of a partial skeleton, no skull, but back vertebrae, ribs, right hindlimb, and plates of the belly armor

More complete skeleton found in 1989 that has the skull and articulated body armor, and was referred to Minmi, but in 2015, it was named its own genus, Kunbarrasaurus

Other specimens found between 1989 and 1996 were referred to Minmi, and they had osteoderms, pelvis, ribs, partial thighbone, and partial shinbone

Estimated to be about 3 m (9.8 ft) long and weigh 600 lb (300 kg)

Had long limbs, which it may have use to find cover under brushes to hide from large predators that may have been able to flip it on its back

Herbivorous, quadrupedal, and armored

Did not have a clubbed tail

Had scutes across its back, and larger osteoderms on the neck, head, shoulders, and hips

Had horizontally oriented plates along the sides of its vertebrae, unlike other ankylosaurs

Horizontal osteoderms (which were thin, bony rods) ran parallel to the vertebra, instead of the ribs (how it got its name)

In 1980 Molnar said these plates were ossified tendons, but said they looked like the pathological tendon aponeurosis (sheet of tissue) of modern crocodiles. In 2014 Victoria Arbour said this was unlikely and only found one distinctive trait in the holotype, but in 2015 Arbour and Philip Currie found it wasn’t unique, which would mean the holotype had no diagnostic features and the Minmi was a nomen dubium. But, the 2015 description of Kunbarrasaurus said that there were new unique Minmi traits and it should be considered valid

Molnar placed Minmi in ankylosauria in 1980, though a new analysis in 2011 found it was the basalmost known ankylosaurid. Arbour and Currie later found it to be too primitive to be in ankylosauridae or nodosauridae. In 2010, Gregory Paul suggested it was part of Minmidae, a very basal ankylosaur group that was isolated on Gondwana and included Antarctopelta

Minmi gut contents were found (cololite). A cololite is a food pellet that was in its stomach and shows what food it ate. This pellet showed Minmi ate seeds, fruit, steams, leaves, and plant tissue with spores. The fibrous tissues were cut into small pieces, which helps show that it chopped food up with its teeth, after cropping with its beak, and did not use gastroliths. If that’s the case, Minmi probably had cheeks

All Minmi specimens have been found in marine rocks. When Minmi lived, its habitat was covered by a shallow sea, and carcasses sometimes drifted out after floods

One specimen was found with teeth of small bramble sharks, so it’s possible the sharks ate some of the dead dinosaur as it laid upside down on the sea floor

Fun Fact:

Plural of Tyrannosaurus rex is Tyrannosaurus rex (like sheep). You can say tyrannosaurids, but that can also refer to different species within the genus, if there are any.

Sponsor:

This episode is brought to you in part by TRX Dinosaurs, which makes beautiful and realistic dinosaur sculptures, puppets, and exhibits. You can see some amazing examples and works in progress on Instagram @trxdinosaurs.